A Cloudy Day on the Western Shore

by Mohamed Mansi Qandil

  He was alone, in his lowest, his weakest moments. His wife was expecting her second child, and he could see that her narrow frame would produce only more girls, which would weaken him and his throne still further. It was essential that he look for someone who would help him, but the priests launched a surprise offensive against him. They set a mob upon the house of Ramouz, the governor of Thebes. They looted it, and surrounded the rest of the Pharaoh’s men. It was an unambiguous message to him, a warning to him to recognize who held the reins of power.

  He found himself picking up an axe and taking the secret passageway between the palace and the temple. He stood solitary before the immense statue of Amun, with its bloodstained ram’s head: the god that had violated his mother. He raised the axe and brought it down, but its blade left not a scratch. The statue held solid, issuing its challenge to him. The priests emerged then from their hiding places in the temple and surrounded him. He had no means of retreat; it was up to the priests to defy the laws of nature, and kill the god’s son. At this moment Horemheb entered—Horemheb: his totem and his redemption, who always appeared just in time to rescue him when he stood on the brink of death. In standing by the Pharaoh’s side Horemheb was obeying his father Amenhotep’s last command. It was he who intervened at this moment to wrest him from the hands of the priests and bring him back safely to his palace, and it was he who stood beside him as he spoke unsteadily, saying, “This city won’t hold the two of us. Either Amun goes, or I do.”

  Then came Horemheb’s reply, succinct and resolute. “A Pharaoh,” he said, “does not leave his throne.” But Horemheb, as a true military man, despised the priests through and through, seeing them as no better than worms, bloodsuckers good for nothing but robbing the farmers of their harvest, the soldiers of their spoils, the river of its water, the earth of its salt.

  The Pharaoh went to bed that night believing he had been defeated, but he woke in the morning to the screaming of the priests as Horemheb’s soldiers pursued them, stormed their temples, and broke statues of Amun over their heads. It was a lightning strike, leaving chaos in its wake, but the victory was incomplete. The priests gathered their adherents—the fanatical agitators and the idle unemployed—and then it was war in the streets of Thebes. The harvest was still a long way off, and the city filled up with people who crowded around the feet of the demolished statues and wept. It was not possible for the army to engage a street war on a daily basis, or to batter people who hadn’t done anything other than weep and beg. The Pharaoh, meanwhile, had passed the point of no return: Thebes was no longer fit to live in. As if all the odors of filth and decay had not been sufficient, added to these now was the smell of blood.

  Tiye stood shivering in the cold that came off of the river. He could see that her legs would not long support her, so he went to her and lifted her trembling body in his arms. She was very light, as if she had been hollowed out from the core. He tucked her into bed. Unable to speak, she gazed at him. This was all she had wanted from him—this gentle touch, imperfect though it be.

  “Queen Tiye,” he said, “Mother. I could never hate you. May I die before such a thing should come to be. But I love my new god, Atun—it was he who rescued me on that bloody morning, and commanded me to leave Thebes. He revealed himself to me in my distress, when I was alone, and he saved my life. It was he who gave me the strength to go to Akhetaten.”

  She lay with eyes closed, exhausted as never before. The silence of death had begun to impose itself—yet it is difficult for the spirit to leave the body. It struggles to escape from the smallest toe of the left foot, in the form of invisible particles, each carrying a part of life, of memory. The particles representing luminous deeds depart lightly and easily, those of darker deeds with a dying cry. She held onto his hand, lest she be swept away by the winds of death. The slave girls who had fled now began to come back into the room, where they stood close to the wall. They carried candles to light the way to the afterlife, all of them sensing the presence of death.

  But the one who was approaching now was Ramouz. Panting and agitated, he paid no attention to the queen laid out upon her bed, or to the atmosphere of mourning that pervaded the room. Addressing the Pharaoh, he cried, “They’ve learned of your arrival, my lord!”

  “What? So soon?” Akhenaten replied.

  “There was some woman who saw you in a tavern, and she recognized you. She went and informed the priests.”

  The sometime whore of Amun had done it, then. He knew it was only a matter of time until they arrived—certainly they had spies in every palace, no matter whether it was the palace of the queen mother. “I won’t leave my mother,” said Akhenaten. “Let them come.”

  His mother pressed his hand, opened her eyes, and said weakly, “Save yourself, my son. It would pain me the more to see you come to harm on my account.”

  “Come with me, then,” he replied.

  “Let me die in peace—in my own house, and my own bed.”

  There was a commotion outside the palace, and the sound of savage yells. She heard the sound of stones striking the palace walls, and the nighttime calm gave way to shouts of rage.

  “They’ve occupied the embankment,” said Ramouz. “They killed the two guards who were with you. The slaves and the guards won’t be able to hold them off for long. Come, my lord, let us go!”

  He kissed her brow. She smiled weakly at him, lifting a finger to signal that he should make haste and go. The slave girls watched all this fearfully, not knowing what fate awaited them. He followed Ramouz, whose great bulk jogged along the passageways in the direction of the rear quarters of the palace with their prospect of the Nile. They descended the stone staircase leading to the tenebrous waters. “You are a good swimmer, my lord,” said Ramouz. “It is your only means of escape.”

  “And she?” Akhenaten said, hesitating.

  “I shall defend her with my life,” replied the other. “All these years they have not dared to touch her, nor will they now.”

  Akhenaten flung himself into the water, feeling that his humiliation was complete. The shore seethed with an agitated mob carrying torches and swords. He struck against the current with his arms, fleeing yet again. It would have been a worthier thing for him to stand against them and die like a Pharaoh, but he was not about to relinquish his chance at revenge on this corrupt city. He would not stop, would not surrender to them. He would live so as to accomplish his vengeance. If they harmed his mother, he would return and burn down their city. He forged on through the water toward the western shore—it was distant, gloomy, and desolate, but they wouldn’t dare pursue him to such a place by night. They feared the spirits of the dead that awoke in the night. Tiye must be dying at this very moment—he had lost her before he could properly forgive her, and he had lost Thebes before acquiring the skill of dealing with it. From a Pharaoh he had become a fugitive. On the point of being sucked down into the depths of the cold water, he pleaded with his body to grant him the strength to resist. He clutched at the reeds, which cut his hands, and struggled toward the beach. At last the uproar from the mob subsided, and only the glow of their torches remained. They moved off, and he entered a different world, dragging himself from the chill waters to the stickiness of the mud.

  The wind moaned as it blew down from the hills where the dead lay. He found himself weeping, feeling the extent of his mortification. It wasn’t merely that he had become a fugitive, but that the light of day might not fall upon him except as a rigid corpse. Even now the priests were surely organizing search parties. He studied the opposite shore and the frenzied agitation of the torches as they moved over it. Were they readying boats, so as to cross over to him? Would not the sacrosanct silence of the other world hold them back? He staggered forward, groping his way among rocks and stumbling into holes. From afar he heard the howling of wolves—no doubt they, too, awaited his demise. Hearing a noise behind him, the rustle of footsteps, he crouched upon the ground and took hold of his knife. Raising it on high he stood up, p
oised for action—but the wolf he was expecting did not appear. Standing upright upon a rock he spied an apparition—had the spirits in truth awoken? It seemed to be a skinny sort of ghost, wearing nothing but a ragged bit of linen and holding a tree-branch in its hand. Akhenaten held his breath, but then he heard the ghost speak.

  “You must have committed a great sin, or they would not be pursuing you so fiercely.”

  A human being, then, just like him: one of those who dwelt among the tombs, or perhaps an outlaw. It made no difference—he could be no worse than those on the opposite bank. The figure sprang down off the rocks and came toward him. Striking the earth with his cane, he said, “Follow me, before they cross the river to get you.”

  Akhenaten roused himself and followed. They moved away from the river, climbing into the hills and plunging in among the rocks. He saw the river from above, boats beginning to mass upon it, his pursuers on board and the light from their torches reflected upon the surface of the water. The man, however, did not trouble to look behind him. There was nothing Akhenaten could do but follow him. The wet garments clinging to him grew colder. He was panting, but he must not stop, so they continued their breathless ascent, as if the hills had no end. Then the man gestured for him to halt. The boats had reached the bank, and soldiers bearing torches were leaping ashore. He and the man stood behind a rock, holding their breath, while the soldiers went to and fro along the river’s sandy shoreline—it did not occur to them to make a foray into the hills where the dead lay in their tombs.

  “We’ll keep going, to a place where they’ll never reach us.”

  After a laborious trek, they came at last to a cave hollowed out among the rocks, an unfinished tomb. The man proceeded into the darkness as if his feet knew the way by heart. Akhenaten stayed by the entrance, while the man squatted upon the ground and began to beat rocks against one another. He continued this operation until sparks flew, igniting a pile of straw. He quickly blew on this to fan the flames. Akhenaten came forward, entering with a sigh of relief. He had been about to freeze. He surveyed the contents of the cave: a bed of straw, stone implements, and clay pots. He seated himself before the fire. Thick smoke rose from it, and the man went on feeding the fire with kindling.

  “Are you the guardian of the tombs,” Akhenaten inquired, “or a fugitive like me?”

  “I’m a dead man,” came the reply. “Or, more to the point, I’ve come back from the dead.”

  In the firelight it was only just possible to make out his features. He was pale and desiccated as the surrounding rock. He picked up one of the clay pots and from it produced some ears of dried corn, which he placed upon the fire. The firewood began to crackle and give off sparks.

  “I was just a slave,” said the man, “a body without life or a soul. When my master died I was supposed to be buried with him, so that I could serve him in the hereafter, but he had been a cruel master. Unwillingly, I endured my servitude under him in this world, so why should I care about him for all eternity?”

  “And did they bury you with him?” Akhenaten inquired.

  “They placed his coffin in the tomb, put me in there with him over my protests, and then they blocked the opening with stones and mortar. There was a container full of food, and I was resigned to my fate, but the air was stifling, and I found dying slowly hard to bear. He had not treated me so as to deserve my dying for his sake, and I could not reconcile myself to the idea of a living death. I was caught in the jaws of death—I had to escape. And so I began searching frantically for a way out. To my good fortune, a collection of my master’s weapons had been buried with him. He was a merchant, and a coward—never in his life had he taken up arms, and yet he collected them zealously. I selected from among them a sturdy sword and began removing the mortar that blocked the passageway—it was still fresh, and I was afraid the air inside the tomb might run out before I could find my way outside.

  “I would have liked to tear away my master’s shroud and make him face eternity bare-boned, but there was no time for that, so I went on clearing the mortar and rattling the stones. Whenever I got tired I sat down and cheered myself up by spitting on my master’s coffin. Sand began to rain down on me, and each time I moved one rock another one confronted me. Then the moment came when I was trying to move a stone and it startled me by tumbling off into space. I was plunged into painful darkness, my body aching with weakness and fatigue. When I opened my eyes I could see a distant sky and glittering stars: I had won back my life. I cleared away the rest of the mortar and moved through the opening, exultant, gulping in the fresh air. It was fortunate that I had come out at night, for if they had seen me by day they’d have seized me and killed me. The only thing I could do was to stay here, amongst the dead, but at least I’m alive!”

  The fire had warmed the whole place, and the corn was about to burn. They ate together. His stomach contracting, Akhenaten realized that he had not tasted food in quite some time.

  “I need to travel north,” he said at last.

  “It’s a long way,” said the man, “and unsafe.”

  “If you were to accompany me, you’d become the richest man in Egypt. I want no more than a friend I can turn to throughout the journey.”

  The man lowered his head and thought for a moment. Then he said, “Never mind your promises of wealth. You’re in no position to fulfill any such promises, but I do indeed need to get away from the danger that lurks in this place.”

  His name was Ka, meaning soul. He had given himself this name after liberating his soul from the death trap. He was well accustomed to hardship and the life of a fugitive, so he slept deeply, while Akhenaten remained tense and uneasy throughout the night. He could not believe all that had happened in the course of a single day. They hadn’t the time to waste in this place, with each of them a hunted man—the hunters would come and search every hole in these hills. He did not sleep at all that night; he was still awake after the fire went out and the wolves howled with hunger. As soon as the darkness had receded a little, he woke Ka. They began their travels at dawn. They descended the hills on the other side of where they had come up, well away from where the hunters might expect to find him, and continued the journey far from the banks of the Nile.

  They walked all that first day amid blank valleys, the Nile appearing in the distance like a silver ribbon, unmoving among the desolate mountains that enclosed it on all sides. On they went, quickly, hoping to be able to pass through this wasteland alive. The man did not ask him a great deal about himself or why they were after him, and Akhenaten kept silent. Even if he had spoken, it would have been impossible for Ka to believe that he was in the company of the Pharaoh of Egypt. Exhausted, they slept beneath the shade of an acacia that stood alone in the emptiness. They cooled themselves with river water. Hunger beset them cruelly, but the leaves of the acacia were bitter.

  They took care all the while not to be spotted by anyone who might be watching from a boat out on the river. They found some Indian figs growing among the rocks, and Ka proved to be an expert in extracting their prickly sweetness. After two days of walking, the mountains began to draw back a little from the Nile, and green earth came into view. They could not believe their eyes, as they beheld the verdure that extended all the way to the river’s edge. They saw some men standing in the shade of the palm trees, using their feet to knead mud mixed with silt, to produce the material necessary for manufacturing pottery and mud bricks.

  Before the men stood a woman holding a small whip in her hand, as if she were their supervisor. Akhenaten and Ka felt as though they had escaped from the valley of death and come back to life. The woman turned toward them and studied them for a moment without fear or surprise. Signaling to the men to keep working, she approached the two of them and peered boldly into their faces.

  “You are in the village of Naqada,” she said. “Seldom does anyone come here through the wilderness. Are you runaways?”

  It was nothing unusual—this remote village was well accustomed to desp
erate strangers turning up there. Ordinarily the residents would provide them with food, while not allowing them to stay, but nothing was done without the village matriarch’s consent. The woman called to the men, warning them not to neglect their work in her absence. Then she led her two visitors into the village. The fields were packed with men working tirelessly, while women stood at the end of each field, some of them holding canes.

  “What an odd place this village is,” whispered Ka. “Here the women rule the men.”

  They passed through a stone gate into the village lanes, where there were houses carved into the rock. The villagers’ faces seemed to reflect the irregular features of the mountains themselves. Neither in its composition nor in its architecture did this village resemble any of the mud-brick settlements scattered along the river’s edge. As they proceeded, a group of curious women gathered around them, reaching out with their hands and touching them, palpating their skin, and sniffing at the odor they gave off. Then these women sullenly withdrew. Akhenaten glanced about in surprise. All of the village houses bore the features of Set, god of murk—perhaps it was for this reason that its inhabitants saw nothing wrong in receiving any fugitive or exile who came their way. Set was the killer of light, who cut the body of Osiris into pieces. He left the cultivated fields to the peasants and people of no consequence, appropriating for himself the desert and the wide-open spaces. This village, situated at the edge of the desert, was annexed to it, and so there were statues and reliefs of Set to be seen everywhere. The most important of them depicted a strange animal, incorporating a sort of donkey’s body which nevertheless wore a crown and held a scepter.